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The Age of Fable; Or Beauties of Mythology
by Bulfinch, Thomas
- Used
- very good
- Hardcover
- first
- Condition
- Very Good/No Jacket
- Seller
-
Chico, California, United States
Payment Methods Accepted
About This Item
Boston: S.W. Tilton & Company, 1855. The major work by Bulfinch (1796-1867), collected by Hale in 1881 to form "Bulfinch's Mythology," which is still popular today. This is a Very Good copy of the First Edition Thus, published in the same year as Sanborn's (acknowledged as the True First Edition). This version is quite scarce, with no copies held by major institutions, and rare on the market. In a bit of a bibliomystery, the Title Page is Tilton's but the spine names Lee & Shepard as the publisher. It seems to differ from Sanborn only in its subtitle.Green cloth binding with blindstamping and a gilt mythological scene on the front panel. Mildly bumped and light rub to the tips of the spine. Clean text; 485 pages, including the proper indices. Very supple and quite readable. Hinges a bit weak but holding nicely. An attractive copy, that presents well. In an archival plastic cover. Size: 8vo - over 7¾" - 9¾" tall. First Thus. Hard Cover. Very Good/No Jacket. 8vo - over 7¾" - 9¾" tall.
Synopsis
For almost a century and a half, Bulfinch's Mythology has been the text by which the great tales of the gods and goddesses, Greek and Roman antiquity, Scandinavian, Celtic, and Oriental fables and myths, and the age of chivalry have been known. The forerunner of such interpreters as Edith Hamilton and Robert Graves, Thomas Bulfinch wanted to make these stories available to the general reader. A series of private notes to himself grew into one of the single most useful and concise guides to literature and mythology. The stories are divided into three sections: The Age of Fable or Stories of Gods and Heroes (first published in 1855); The Age of Chivalry (1858), which contains King Arthur and His Knights, The Mabinogeon, and The Knights of English History; and The Legends of Charlemagne or The Romance of the Middle Ages (1863). For the Greek myths, Bulfinch drew on Ovid and Virgil, and for the sagas of the north, from Mallet's Northern Antiquities. provides lively versions of the myths of Zeus and Hera, Venus and Adonis, Daphne and Apollo, and their cohorts on Mount Olympus; the love story of Pygmalion and Galatea; the legends of the Trojan War and the epic wanderings of Ulysses and Aeneas; the joys of Valhalla and the furies of Thor; and the tales of Beowulf and Robin Hood.
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Details
- Bookseller
- Quercus Rare Books
(US)
- Bookseller's Inventory #
- 001799
- Title
- The Age of Fable; Or Beauties of Mythology
- Author
- Bulfinch, Thomas
- Format/Binding
- Hardcover
- Book Condition
- Used - Very Good
- Jacket Condition
- No Jacket
- Edition
- First Thus
- Publisher
- S.W. Tilton & Company
- Place of Publication
- Boston
- Date Published
- 1855
- Size
- 8vo - over 7¾" - 9&f
- Bookseller catalogs
- Literature;
Terms of Sale
Quercus Rare Books
We accept checks and money orders in US Dollars. Credit card orders are accepted through Biblio. California residents add appropriate sales tax. Items are returnable for any reason within ten days of receipt (please email or call first before returning item).
About the Seller
Quercus Rare Books
Biblio member since 2006
Chico, California
About Quercus Rare Books
Quercus Books seeks out and provides to the discriminating Reader or Collector noteworthy books in the First Edition. Our particular focus is on Modern Literature (roughly from the Second World War to the present) and Irish Authors. We also retain a small stock of non-fiction titles, mostly in the fields of American Western History, American Indians, and the American Civil War. Member of IOBA - the Independent Online Booksellers Association.
Glossary
Some terminology that may be used in this description includes:
- First Edition
- In book collecting, the first edition is the earliest published form of a book. A book may have more than one first edition in...
- Jacket
- Sometimes used as another term for dust jacket, a protective and often decorative wrapper, usually made of paper which wraps...
- Cloth
- "Cloth-bound" generally refers to a hardcover book with cloth covering the outside of the book covers. The cloth is stretched...
- Gilt
- The decorative application of gold or gold coloring to a portion of a book on the spine, edges of the text block, or an inlay in...
- Title Page
- A page at the front of a book which may contain the title of the book, any subtitles, the authors, contributors, editors, the...
- Spine
- The outer portion of a book which covers the actual binding. The spine usually faces outward when a book is placed on a shelf....
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